The Oatmeal, Elon Musk and a Tesla museum

Updated 5:17 PM ET, Thu July 10, 2014

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Photos:The Oatmeal, Elon Musk and a Tesla museum

The Oatmeal, Elon Musk and a Tesla museum – Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was a Serbian-American engineer and unsung inventor who helped pioneer the use of electricity, among other achievements. A campaign is underway, aided by entrepreneur Elon Musk, to turn Tesla's last remaining laboratory into a museum.

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Photos:The Oatmeal, Elon Musk and a Tesla museum

The Oatmeal, Elon Musk and a Tesla museum – Cartoonist Matthew Inman, founder of humor website The Oatmeal, has celebrated Tesla online and in 2012 launched a crowdfunded effort to save Tesla's last remaining laboratory.

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Photos:The Oatmeal, Elon Musk and a Tesla museum

The Oatmeal, Elon Musk and a Tesla museum – Inman's online paean to Tesla praised him for inventing an alternating-current electrical system but claimed he was overshadowed by rival Thomas Edison, who received credit for inventing the light bulb. "Without question, Tesla was a genius," he wrote.

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Photos:The Oatmeal, Elon Musk and a Tesla museum

The Oatmeal, Elon Musk and a Tesla museum – Inman's campaign raised more than $1.3 million to buy the site of Tesla's former Wardenclyffe laboratory in Shoreham, New York, on the north coast of Long Island.

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Photos:The Oatmeal, Elon Musk and a Tesla museum

The Oatmeal, Elon Musk and a Tesla museum – Now Inman is trying to raise money to renovate the old Tesla lab and turn it into a museum. In a comic strip earlier this year, he made a plea to Elon Musk, founder of Tesla Motors, which is named for Nikola Tesla. Musk is seen here with then-California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at a Tesla Motors event in 2008.

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Photos:The Oatmeal, Elon Musk and a Tesla museum

The Oatmeal, Elon Musk and a Tesla museum – On Thursday, Tesla's birthday, Inman wrote that Musk, who is also CEO of private spaceflight company SpaceX, pledged $1 million to the cause.

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Photos:The Oatmeal, Elon Musk and a Tesla museum

The Oatmeal, Elon Musk and a Tesla museum – Hours after Inman's Tesla S review and plea, Musk sent a Twitter message saying he would "would be happy to help." Thursday, Inman said he made good on the promise.